


Snow Day

by ancestrallizard



Category: Shin Megami Tensei, Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Summoner, Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne
Genre: Gen, M/M, romantic fluff abounds
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-09
Updated: 2017-10-09
Packaged: 2019-01-11 00:10:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,663
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12310764
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ancestrallizard/pseuds/ancestrallizard
Summary: Hitoshura and Raidou have a winter date in the Capitol.





	Snow Day

**Author's Note:**

> Gift fic from last year for ps2nocturne on tumblr

Raidou woke in the darkness of his apartment to the sound of something in the kitchen. The one-room living space above the Narumi Detective Agency had definitely not had anyone else in it when he’d gone to bed, and he’d locked the door and window, with both standard and supernatural locks. His hand moved slowly toward the Kuda he kept on the bed stand, any traces of drowsiness extinguished by a rush of adrenaline.

A humanoid figure dug through his sparse pantry, barely illuminated by the light from the open window. Empty food containers lay open on the countertop. The figure turned to face him as Raidou’s fist closed around the Kuda. Angular lines on its skin glowed blue in the midnight dark, and its eyes shone yellow with reflected moonlight.

“You’re out of cereal,” Hitoshura said.

Raidou blinked at his boyfriend a few times, then carefully put the Kuda back down. He did not have the energy at the moment to ask what the Demifiend was doing here so far ahead of his planned evening arrival time the next day, or why it looked like he’d eaten what little food Raidou had left. He moved over on the bed and pulled the blanket away from his side, exposing his body to the freezing night air only for a second before the space was filled by a familiar body and warmth. Raidou drifted back to sleep with the Hitoshura’s body curled around him and arm slung over his waist.

He woke again, thankfully much later, to the sun burning his eyelids. He would have though the encounter the night before was a dream brought on by overwork and loneliness, if not for the cold air stinging his ears from the still open window, the heavy weight on his chest, hair tickling his nose, and drool on his shoulder.

Raidou wouldn’t deny the arrangement was comfortable, aside from the drool. In the two years they’d been together, Hitoshura rarely slept over, and his unnaturally high body heat was currently being cancelled out by the winter air, leaving Raidou comfortably warm instead of overheated. Still, he had other things he needed to do, the secondhand clock on the wall said it was past time he left.

Which was easier said than done. It wouldn’t be fair to say that the supernaturally strong fiend curled around him slept like the dead. Raidou had woken up the dead and undead before, and that was a cakewalk compared to waking up Hitoshura. They woke up in better tempers than him, too.

He lifted the hand not pinned by his boyfriend and poked him in the face, careful not to get too close to his mouth and very sharp, very strong teeth. Sure enough, after enough prods Hitoshura’s eyes flickered open as an inhuman growl vibrated through Raidou’s chest.

“Normally I would sleep in with you,” Raidou said, “But I still need to go shopping for dinner.”

That was enough to finally get him to roll off, though Raidou suspected Hitoshura was more motivated by the promise of food than that he was inconveniencing him. The Devil Summoner got to his feet and stretched. He waited for feeling to come back into his numb arm. Hitoshura yawned, half-lidded and unfocused.

The plan had been for Hitoshura come by later that night once dinner had already made, though that was hopeful thinking on Raidou’s part. The Demifiend’s sense of time was flimsy at best, especially with the distorted temporal nature of the Vortex World. He was luck that Hitoshura had only shown up a day early instead of a day late, or even a week late. Still, as things stood he wasn’t sure how he was going to occupy the temperamental, easily bored Demifiend until he’d bought all the ingredients make dinner.

Hitoshura yawned again and stood as well. “So when are we leaving?”

Surprise must have shown on Raidou’s face, because he continued, “What? I’m not going to leave you to do all the work by yourself. Besides, I haven’t seen the Capitol in the daylight in a while.”

More often than not Raidou shopped alone, ever since Gouto had stopped accompanying him as much about a year ago. That he would have company for the first time in a long time with him sent an unexpected but welcome comfort through him.

He thought about giving Hitoshura the object in his cloak pocket he’d been carrying with him the last few weeks on the off chance he ran into him before their date, but he decided it could wait until later. He told Hitoshura he’ll be ready to go after a shower, and after a quick shower with regrettably cold water, Raidou was dressed and ready by the door.

Raidou buttoned his heavy winter cloak around his shoulders. “Do you still know the illusion spell?” he asked Hitoshura.

The Demifiend fixed him with a prideful, dismissive look Raidou was quite familiar with by this point, that clearly said he’d insulted him by even asking such a question. His form distorted, and when the image righted itself, Hitoshura had become an average human in an average style of dress for the city. No one would have any reason to give him a second glance. Except –

“You might want new clothes for the time of year.”

The Demifiend looked down at the summer clothes of his disguise, and his form shimmered again. Now he worea dark blue winter coat and hat.

Raidou pulled out another cloak from the closet. “Are you sure you don’t want an actual coat? It’ll be colder than yesterday.”

Hitoshura stared at the coat like it’d personally offended him (and his glare without his yellow, slit pupiled eyes looked wrong). “A little cold weather won’t hurt me.” He said.

Raidou considered the task of arguing with him, and decided that they were late enough already. “Suit yourself.”

Hitoshura walked past him and waited in the hall. Raidou locked up behind them, though not before taking the extra cloak.

 

Even with the crowd in Karukogawa, much of the fresh snow that had fallen the night before was still undisturbed. It coated the rooftops and roadsides, and was blown occasionally into swirling eddies by the winter wind.

Raidou pulled the brim of his hat down to shield against another gust of wind as they walked past a souvenir shop. “You’ve finally grown into it.” He said.

Hitoshura shivered and pulled the extra cloak tighter around himself. “Shut up.”

There was a faster route to get what they needed, but Hitoshura was fascinated by many of the shops, and often strayed away from where Raidou was shopping for ingredients in favor of whatever new thing caught his interest. He’d take as much interest in a game store as one for clothes, and a few times he bounded forward on all fours in excitement through the snow before remembering stay upright for his disguise.

After their first trip to the market and back to the apartment to drop the supplies off, their second outing was devoted almost entirely to leisure. The only groceries Raidou had picked up, a bag of daikon radishes, hung virtually forgotten off his arm as he followed Hitoshura, who sometimes charged into a store, and other times simply observed from a distance before moving on to the next. Raidou hadn’t had the chance to shop for pleasure in a long time, and he enjoyed it almost as much as he did seeing Hitoshura so happy. He only regretted that they were confined to this part of the Capitol due to time. He resolved to show the Demifiend other, more interesting places in the future.

The only thing marring the picturesque scene was an occasional tingling on the nape of Raidou’s neck that meant he was being watched. Whenever he scanned the crowds or the rooftops, he never saw anything out of the ordinary.

The third time it happened, Raidou stopped. He again looked around, and again saw nothing out of the ordinary. Hitoshura stopped too, his side pressed up against Raidou’s to leech away warmth and shield himself from the wind. “What is it?”

Raidou shook his head and dismissed the feeling. He looked to store across the street instead, a small, warm looking shop. Soft chimes rang out above the noise of the crowd as people entered and exited the place, ringing the metal above the door.

“Just a tea shop. I haven’t been to it in a while.” He loved the tea there, but it could be expensive, and he couldn’t justify shopping there when he had tea back at office already, black tea that Narumi shared with him. Raidou still didn’t like the taste even years after drinking it, but it was serviceable, and in the constant flow of work and chores he’d pushed buying tea he actually liked to the back of his mind.

Hitoshura was standing close enough that Raidou could hear his teeth chattering. It sounded like he’d reached his threshold to the cold, but he’d wait until he was nearly literally frozen before he ever said anything about it.

Raidou unwound the scarf from his neck without a word and wrapped it loosely around Hitoshura’s. The cold stung at Raidou’s newly exposed skin. “Do you want to head back now?”

Hitoshura pulled the scarf tighter and up to cover his nose and mouth. Raidou could swear he saw the markings on Hitoshura’s face faintly bleed through his disguise, though they were faintly pink instead of blue. People flowed around them like they were stones in a river, no one giving them a second glance.

“Not yet,” Hitoshura finally said. “I need to buy something first.”

“All right. If we double back the way we came-“

“No!” the Demifiend interjected. “It’s a surprise. Just wait here, I’ll be right back.” And with that he melted back into the crowd and vanished.

Raidou felt the barest twinge of worry as he watched Hitoshura walk away, but he put it to rest. The Demifiend had been in the Capitol before; he knew how to handle himself.

And besides, Raidou thought as the nape of his neck prickled again, he had his own problem to take care of.

He stepped into a long alleyway between a dress shop and an empty storefront, and kept going until he rounded corner and was out of sight of the street.

“I hope this isn’t how you typically respond to someone tailing you.”

Gouto was balanced on a broken wood fence at eye level with Raidou.

He shook off the admonishment. “I knew it was you. Is there an emergency? Did something happen?”

Gouto shook flakes of snow from one of his paws. “Everything’s fine,” He said. “Word gets around when a powerful demon shows up out of nowhere in the middle of the night, so the higher-ups told me to check it out.”

Raidou frowned. He and Hitoshura had been over this already, with Gouto and Narumi and the Elders of the Kuzunoha clan. “Hitoshura’s not going to hurt anyone.” He said, more tersely than he’d intended.

Gouto licked his paw, demonstratively unbothered by the summoner’s rare anger. “Don’t get too worked up, It’s just a formality. I know he controls himself, and the elders will figure that out too. Eventually.” He blinked at Raidou, thoughtful. “He does it for you more than anything. If you’re alright, everyone and everything else should be too.”

Raidou pulled hat down to hide the almost involuntary smile on his face, and Goutou made a noise like he was going to hack up a hairball. “I’m glad I left before you got into the sappy phase.”

His mentor leisurely stretched out on the fence. “And now that I’ve officially made sure he won’t start blowing up buildings or whatever, I’ll leave you two be. I’ve got my own stuff to do.”

“Yes, somewhere there’s a windowsill that urgently needs to be basked in,” Raidou teased.

His mentor’s ear flickered in irritation, but his voice was still soft when he said, “See you around, kid.” Goutou leapt from the fence to the roof, and was gone from sight.

Raidou stepped out of the alley and back onto the street as Hitoshura returned. He carried two small wrapped packages, and once he caught sight of Raidou he ran up to him and shoved one of them at his chest. “The other ones for later, but you can open this one now.”

Raidou carefully peeled away the paper wrapping while the Demifiend shifted restlessly form foot to foot. It was scarf, patterned in dark blue and black, which looked both very warm and very expensive. Raidou traced his fingers gently along the fabric. “Thank you, it’s beautiful. Though, are you sure you don’t want it? I can just take my own scarf back.”

His boyfriend took a step back as his hands went possessively toward the scarf still wrapped around his neck. “No, its mine now.”

That decided that, then. Again Raidou’s thoughts returned to the object in his cloak pocket, and again he decided to give it to Hitoshura later, once they were out of the cold and hopefully fed. Raidou put on the new scarf, and they walked back home hand in hand. Hitoshura’s claws would occasionally brush the back of Raidou’s hand, but they never broke the skin.

 

No matter how long Raidou stared at the ingredients set out before him on the countertop, the missing ones did not spontaneously materialize. Looking around the kitchen space didn’t help either. They were in Narumi’s apartment, since he had a stove, and he stocked food as sparsely as Raidou did.

(He’d let Raidou use it for the date, after a sporadic, disorganized speech about young love and growing up, and what he specifically did not want them to do his apartment or doing in his apartment, until Raidou was so embarrassed he resolved not to ask him for anything else ever again.)

And on top of that set back, the meal was supposed to sit for two or three hours, and he hadn’t even started it yet.

In his defense, he’d gotten distracted once they’d returned to the detective agency. Raidou had barely gotten through the door before Hitoshura had shoved the other wrapped package at him and insisted he open it. The mystery gift was container of green tea, from the teashop they’d stopped in front of before. He knew from the few times he’d seen it on the shelf in the back of the store that it was the most expensive one they stocked. He thanked Hitoshura again, and there was pride that edged on smugness on his boyfriend’s face when he saw how Raidou’s expression brightened.

He’d asked to play cards after that, so Raidou had put the food away to play a few rounds of blackjack with him. They played by their own rules, and the goal more than anything was to cheat their way to victory without getting caught. He focused so much on reversing his long-time losing streak against Hitoshura that he lost track of the time.

The game finally ended with another victory for Hitoshura (and Raidou was still confused at how well the half-demon could cheat and hide cards away, considering he never wore sleeves). He’d left to make a nest by the front door after his victory with the cape and scarf Raidou had given him, as well as Raidou’s own cape. Raidou had taken the small object from his cape before giving it to him, to make sure he didn’t find it. Not even a minute later his breaths evened out and deepened with sleep.

Which left Raidou to work on dinner. He’d forgotten to buy the mushrooms, Narumi didn’t have enough bowls and dishes to separate the ingredients the way Raidou would have liked, the cabbage he’d bought was too small, and he had half as much dachi as they needed for the pot.

He thought about finding a neighbor to borrow ingredients from when he felt a familiar presence peering over his shoulder. “Is it ready yet? What is it?” Hitoshura asked.

“It’s supposed to be oden, and no, it’s not ready yet.” Raidou had never eaten it before, but the recipe was supposed to be easy enough, a hotpot put together in a broth. “ I didn’t realize were missing some of the ingredients. I thought you were taking a nap?”

Hitoshura shrugged and moved beside him to take a place at the countertop. “I’m more hungry than tired. And we can just throw what we have together, I don’t care either way.” He picked up a knife, though Raidou hadn’t told him he needed to cut anything yet. “What should I do?”

Raidou passed him a grey gelatinous block. “This is konjac. You just need to cut into it lightly– “.

He cut down before Raidou finished speaking, slicing through the block and, by the sound of it, into part of the countertop. Narumi probably wouldn’t notice.

Hitoshura growled in frustration, and Raidou leaned in to kiss his cheek, the skin rough and sand-worn. “Smaller pieces will work fine too.”

The diversion worked; Hitoshura flushed lightly in embarrassment, and his deathgrip on the knife handle loosened. Calmer atmosphere restored, Raidou went to start the water boiling. And ran into yet another problem. The stove wasn’t lighting. He could find a lighter in a drawer, maybe, or find some one who’d give him matches –

Hitoshura moved closer and held out his hand, palm up. Magic sparked to the stovetop, an Agi spell Raidou didn’t recognize, and the gas caught light.

Work went smoothly after that. They didn’t speak much, except for Raidou occasionally telling Hitoshura what to prepare next. He saw him sneak more than a few bites of pork and fish, but they had enough to compensate for it. Knowing Hitoshura’s tastes, Raidou had modified the recipe given to him and added more meat, getting twice as much beef and pork and half as many vegetables. He would have added demon meat, but he didn’t know if cooking it in a cheap pot on an apartment stove was a bad idea or not. If they ever did this again, maybe he’d try it.

Before long a warm, savory smell permeated the apartment, and it was time to leave the dish to simmer, though going by the glances Hitoshura kept giving the pot Raidou didn’t know how long he’d let it sit before he started eating. They might not have to wait too long; the flames Hitoshura had used burned and flickered faster than regular fire, almost like an illusion, and it might cook the meal faster than a normal fire would. They sat at a table by the window in the next room and soaked in the warmth.

The last time Raidou had seen Hitoshura so proud they’d defeated a particularly powerful demon. “I knew I could cook,” The Demifiend boasted.

Raidou nodded and smiled. “You did great.” He didn’t burn down the apartment, which was always a victory, but even beyond that he’d stayed to help, and worked even faster than Raidou did.

Hitoshura’s good mood was contagious, and it livened Raidou more than the warmth of the apartment or the food they would eat. Raidou wasn’t dissatisfied with his life, he quite liked it in fact, but the day they’d shared made him realize how lonely he felt when Hitoshura returned to the Vortex World. Shopping with him, cooking with him, waking up next to him in the morning, and just being with him filled Raidou with an emotion he didn’t know how to begin putting into words.

So he didn’t try, and settled for action instead. He pulled out the object he’d taken from his cape earlier, that had been on his mind all day, and held it out to Hitoshura. “I’ve wanted to give you this for a while.”

Hitoshura snatched it from his hand, flipped it around to inspect it, and even sniffed it. Confusion was clear in his face when he asked, “A key?”

Raidou motioned to pull hat brim down and only grabbed air. “For my apartment.”

His boyfriend looked at him, then at the key, then back to him, still lost. “I don’t actually need keys, you know. I can get in without it.”

“I know you don’t. It’s just…I want this to be a place you can always come back to. You shouldn’t have to pick locks to get into your own home.”

Hitoshura’s hand curled around brass key like he was cradling it. Now Raidou could see the reaction he’d only seen a fraction of earlier in the snow. The blue markings on his body brightened to a soft red, almost pink, and his face was uncharacteristically solemn as he looked into Raidou’s eyes over the low table. “I’ll keep it safe.”

The key wasn’t expensive at all, and he could have another made easily, but Raidou suddenly felt that they weren’t really talking about a key. He nodded in acknowledgement. “I never doubted you wouldn’t.”

Hitoshura smiled shyly at him, and Raidou returned it. He felt light and young and happy. He wanted to move to the other side of the table and hold his boyfriend close and kiss him. But then something exploded behind him.

They ran to the kitchen. The entire stovetop had been blown off, and the ruins of it were still smoking. The pot was in pieces on the floor, and embedded in the wall and ceiling. Broth and ingredients were splattered haphazardly like entrails from a murder. As Raidou stared at the carnage, a cabbage leaf fell from the ceiling onto his head.

Apparently Agi magic and cookware did not mix. Narumi would probably notice this.

 

They brought Narumi take-out from the restaurant they’d eaten dinner at, in the hopes that it would smooth over the news of his destroyed kitchen. It did not.

**Author's Note:**

> Narumi's poor kitchen. 
> 
> ive got memes and smt stuff at my blog: ancestrallizard.tumblr.com


End file.
